All That Remains
by A fan of zelda
Summary: When Link goes to free each of the Divine Beasts from Calamity Ganon's control, he isn't expecting what he finds left behind. A piece of each of his fallen friends awaits him, and when he gets a closer look, he gets to witness something he wished to never have to go through. He watches as each of his friends falls in battle as though he was there too. Slight Lipha in Chapter 2
1. Scarred Feathers

Link walked up to the terminal on Vah Medoh, ready to free the Divine Beast from Calamity Ganon and return it to their side once again. He wasn't entirely sure why he chose this Divine Beast first.

 _Oh, wait…_ he thought _...yea I do._

To regain Vah Ruta, Link had to encounter something called a Lynel. A half man, half horse monster that was quite tough as Link did not have many good pieces of equipment. Vah Rudiana had to be accessed by climbing up a freaking volcano. Enough said. For Link to get to Vah Naboris, he had to infiltrate the Yiga Clan hideout and defeat their master. Vah Medoh was the easy one.

As Link was about to put his slate up on the terminal, he caught something in the corner of his eye. Sitting there, by one of the air jets, was a small pile of navy blue feathers. The hero sheathed his weapon as he went over to get a closer look.

All of a sudden, he got a fuzzy feeling at the back of his head, and it slowly was reaching around to the front, and it traveled to his eyes. And then he witnessed something that happened one hundred years ago.

 ***100 years ago***

The Rito Champion Revali stood proudly at Medoh's terminal, prepared to initiate his part of the plan to stop the Calamity. Even though he didn't get to do exactly what he wanted, which was to slay the Calamity itself, he at least got to do something, he wasn't forced to sit on the sidelines. One day, historians would write down his remarkable feats of being the Rito Champion, and one day, they would carve a statue of him out of the post that sprouted from Rito Village and his people were forced to create their village around.

The Divine Beast was flying in the air while he was trying to find a good place to land the thing. All of a sudden, a purple and black substance exploded around him, and all he could hear was an ear piercing scream.

He looked around to find the source of the sound, and he did see it. And the sight of it horrified him. The creature was made out of this purple substance. The creature was also covered with some strange technology that could only be described as Sheikah tech.

 _Did the Shekiah turn on us the Rito thought, or is it just another thing that is supposed to help us out in the fight against Ganon._

Out of nowhere, a cannon blast tore through the air, and the Rito was given his answer.

 _It's probably the former. Well, if this thing wants a fight, it's a fight it will get._

The Rito quickly took to the sky and pulled out 3 bomb arrows as he knocked them in his bow. He looked at the creature, trying to find a weak point on him that could help increase the amount of damage he created. He scanned his body while quickly circling around him, making him a harder target to hit.

After a few laps around the unknown creature, he finally spotted what he hoped was one. Right in the middle of the blight's face was a blue light that looked like an eye. The Ruto Champion then had a strange thought, and how much it did resemble that of the Sheikah Guardians.

After finding a good chance to shoot the opponent, he let his arrows go, and all 3 of them flew straight into the blight's eye, causing it to scream out in pain.

 _Good,_ he thought, _it can be damaged._

The Champion continued to fight the opponent that he was faced with, circling above it and shooting arrows at it, until it decided to retaliate once again, and letting loose a barrage of cannon fire upon the Rito.

One of the shots hit his wing, causing him to lose his grip on his bow, and it fell onto the floor of the Divine Beast with a metallic ring. The Rito had to quickly swoop down and save his weapon from falling over the edge.

Unfortunately, that was just what the blight wanted. While the Rito went to grab his weapon, the opponent used the opportunity to spawn tornadoes, and they all went after the Champion.

Revali, however, persevered through the tornados were definitely causing damage to his flying ability, and he had already lost a lot of his feathers while trying to get his weapon. After multiple attempts, he got it and he was back in the sky. He used his height to his advantage and shot several more arrows at his opponent, and they all hit their mark, causing the blight to howl in even more pain.

Even though Revali was getting many hits on his enemy, he was getting hit by it a lot too, and it was starting to severely limit his flying abilities. The blight would constantly shoot at him with its canon's and the Champion had an easy time avoiding them at first, but his stamina was starting to go down, and the only thing that was keeping him energized was adrenaline.

However, that would wear out soon, and then he would have nothing left.

 _No, he thought bitterly, I cannot bother to think about that. I will not let this minion of Ganon defeat me. I will defeat it, or I am not Revali, the best Champion of them all._

Revali continued to assault the blight with his arrows and hitting his mark most of the time. Some of his arrows missed their mark, but 95 percent of the time they caused the blight to screech once again, and even though it was ear piercing at first, he had gotten used to the sound, and it made him smile every time.

The battle was going favorably for the Rito so far, but things were changed fast once the blight decided to throw some new attacks against Revali.

The Rito quickly dodged the incoming attacks from the blight and found it much harder to retaliate with his energy continuing to wear down. He found that he was more nearly avoiding whatever was coming whether it be the new tactic that the blight had imposed upon him, the tornados that spawned whenever he had to go down to regain some energy or the cannon blasts that were becoming more rapid as he continued to wear down its health.

After nothing, much was coming with both sides doing somewhat steady damage to the other, and Revali's arrow supply was rapidly dwindling, along with his energy, he decided it was time to finish this once and for all.

He grabbed a very special arrow, something that the Sheikah scientist called an Ancient Arrow. They said it was made for if anything happened to their technology, and it malfunctioned, it could be used to destroy it before it caused much damage.

The fact that the blight was covered in Sheikah technology, he assumed that it would work as well. The only downside to this was that this was the only one he had. If he missed, he would have no more ammunition and would have to find some way to wear the blight down, but throughout the entire battle, the blight showed no signs of tiring. Meanwhile, Revali was running solely on adrenaline, and even that was beginning to run down, and at a rapid pace. When that happened, he had no idea what he would do. He had to finish this, right here, right now.

Revali circled the blight a few times, trying to find the best moment to attack when he finally found it. He knocked the arrow in his bow and lined up his shot. The Champion quickly calculated a lot of math in his head.

Even though he never told anyone, the champion was actually very intelligent and could do a lot of things in his head. There was a reason he hit his mark every time and always beat everyone in an archery competition. It was also how he was able to develop his gale.

After calculating the tension needed on his weapon, and kept in mind that the arrow would drop gradually over a long distance, he put his plan into action. He pulled back the bow, but before he had the chance to shoot, a pod that he had missed came jetting straight for him. He was too low on energy to avoid it from hitting him, and it smacked full force on his wing.

His arrow went way too wide to even hope of touching the blight, and when he looked to his wing, he saw a big gaping hole right in the middle. He came crashing down to the divine beast, sending a bunch of his scarred feathers into a heaping mound with him.

The Champion would not be able to fly anymore. He would not even be able to dodge what was coming next. He would have to take the brute of the next attack and hope that something miraculous would happen, or he would not live to see tomorrow.

When the pod nailed him in the side and sent him over the edge. Revali had lost and the blight would reign over Vah Medoh. The Champion wasn't dead as he was flying over the edge of his Divine Beast, he had to live through every painful moment as his side was burning and he had the time to think about his regrets.

He should have never been so rude to Link, and never had given him a chance to prove his worth. He should have been more open to ideas that didn't revolve around the protagonist being himself. He should have had more fun and not be so focused on improving his archery to do anything fun with his friends, the champions.

And when all went dark for the Rito, and all he could see was a faint light in the distance, he hoped that it would free him from his regrets.

 ***Present***

Link took another look at the feathers that laid before him. It was all that remained of the Rito Champion. He had to do something about it.

He searched his pockets before finding a small bottle that he hoped would suffice, and carefully, carefully put the feathers in the bottle, hoping to hold onto this piece of his friend.

After a successful battle with the blight and Medoh was returned to their side, Link received the Great Eagle Bow. He had a mount built in his house for the bow, and next to it, he had a small table with the icon on Vah Medoh but on the surface.

He placed the bottle of feathers there, hoping to keep hold of memories from 100 years ago.

* * *

 ** _Hey everyone. I hope you like this mini-series. Please comment what you think about it, I would really appreciate it. Anyway, in case you didn't realize, this story has a long word count compared to what I normally write. I'm going to give you an explanation:_**

 ** _This year, for the first time, I will be competing in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and in order to make teh 50,000 eord count goal, I need to write 1,667 words a day. So I will be writing a variety of one-shots, mini-stories such as thins, and work on my main story, with each chapter having at least 1,667 words in it._**

 ** _That also means in November, I will be taking a one-month hiatius to soley work on my piece. Well, I still have a month, so don't worry. I still have plenty of stories to make for everyone who reads my work._**

 ** _Until next time: Bye :)_**


	2. Scattered Scales

Link waded through the water surrounding the central terminal around Vah Ruta. He was unsure of what to expect. He still felt bad after seeing the events of Revali's battle over Vah Medoh, and he had no idea what to expect this time around with Mipha.

He had a special connection with Mipha that happened one hundred years ago. They were close, very close actually, and as he regained his memories, he realized something. He loved her back. He cared about her, and he probably did one hundred years ago as well, but he did not have enough memories of her to be sure.

But his heart now knew what he wanted, and he also knew she wasn't here anymore and died inside her Divine Beast one hundred years ago. Link was ready to face whatever foe defeated Mipha so long ago and avenge her death.

Just as he was about to pull the Sheikah Slate out and activate the terminal when something caught his eye. Floating so calmly on the water, were several bright red scales.

He walked over to them, his heart hurting, and looked at every bit of them. And then the fuzzy feeling came. Reaching from the very back of his head, before its tendrils reached his eyes, and then the events that replayed from 100 years ago shook him to the very core.

 ***100 years ago***

Mipha walked abrasively up to the terminal, worrying that something would happen at any moment. She slowly glided on her way to the terminal, leaving a trail of water behind her every step in a way that made her seem even more glorious than she already was.

She was about to place a hand of hers on the terminal to access the controls for Ruta when the malice exploded around her. She gripped the light scale trident in her hand tightly, unsure of what would come next.

The screech that resigned from behind her gave her the answer. Not necessarily the answer she was looking for, but an answer nonetheless. She poisoned her spear into position prepared for whatever would come next.

A sweeping swipe of the monster's spear started the battle. Mipha dodged away from the weapon, which resembled Sheikah tech all too much. And when the Zora got another look at the beast before her, it had a lot of Sheikah tech all over it.

But it was also mixed with things that belong to the Calamity. She had seen the calamity leave something behind, and it looked like a magenta and black goo. The monster before her appeared to be made out of that goo.

Only two possible explanations for what was happening to the princess. The first one was that the Sheikah had made a secret alliance with Ganon, and actually were helping him out all along and she had been stupid enough to trust that the technology they made would help in the battle. The second possibility was that Ganon had found some way to get into the Divine Beasts and to take them over and use them against the people who had created them.

Regardless of whatever led the Zora to be in the position she was in right now, that thing would not change, and it wanted one thing. It wanted to take over Ruta. Her friend. She would not let a blight take over what she worked so hard for. What she had to convince so many people she was worthy of controlling. She had to prove it all right now. She would stop the monster, no matter the cost.

She retaliated against the monster and thrust her spear into it multiple times, and it screamed out in pain everytime that her spear pierced its side. The princess smiled, knowing that she could harm the foul creature that was in Ruta.

She continued to avoid its sweeping slashes and strike it whenever it was trying to recover. The battle was definitely quite hard for Mipha to handle, and she was grateful for all the training both Muzu and Seggin had given her for Ruta as she didn't have much trouble controlling the Divine Beast while fighting the monster.

It was harder, no doubt, but not as hard as it could have been. The blight was also fighting against her controls, making it much harder for her to keep control. The monster was trying to steer Ruta to her Domain. Her home. It was doing everything it could, but Mipha would not let it keep control.

Luckily though, whenever the blight tried to control Ruta, it would not be able to attack, and Mipha had the chance to damage it even more. The princess thought strategically during her entire battle, making sure not to make a single mistake. Any mistake that she made would be fatal. She could not screw up.

She decided to vary her attack pattern so it was not easy to know exactly what she would do next, giving the blight the upper hand. Mipha also studied its attack pattern, and it was the same every time. She wondered if it did in fact, have only one attack, or if more were lurking, she wanted to know what these were while she still had energy in her.

She stepped to the other side of the control room, leaving her way out of reach of the blight's spear, even when it was extended. The blight looked at her, almost as if questioning her move. Mipha had made sure that there was plenty of space around for her to move if she needed to. And the princess was happy that she did.

The blight had retracted it's spear and threw it at her, which to barely was able to move away from, and unfortunately, it had clipped her sash, but nothing bad. She wasn't pinned to the ground.

After the spear had been thrown, it had disintegrated before it had reappeared on the blight, which Mipha also found to be quite intriguing. She wanted to learn everything she could about this blight. And there was still more for her to learn.

She watched the blight curiously when out of nowhere, it screeched before disintegrating. For a moment, there was relief that Ganon had called back the monsters, or that Link was somehow able to defeat Ganon on his own. But that cheerfulness was shattered when it had appeared in another area of the room.

 _Not only do I have to deal with this…_ thing _made from Ganon, but it also teleports. This battle is turning out quite nicely she thought to herself with a small smile at the end. Even though the battle was very tough, she would not back down, She was going to keep the promise that she made to herself to defend Ruta until the very end. No matter what._

Keeping in mind the new attacks she had learned about the blight, she continued to attack, knowing when it would make a certain attack and being able to counter it as effectively as possible.

Even though the battle was supposed to be her primary concern, she couldn't help but think of how her friends were doing. Were they all safe, or were they battling their own monsters in their Divine Beasts? She really wanted to hope that it was the former, but in her heart, she knew it was the latter.

She quickly snapped out of it and refocused on the battle. She could not dare to space out again, it could be disastrous if she did. After more stabbing and avoiding retaliation attacks, the blight teleported away. Mipha expected him to reappear on the ground like it had done numerous times before, but it did not.

It had teleported above the main terminal and now appeared to be hanging from the ceiling. It made Mipha nervous because this was a whole new thing. However, the bright had raised the water level higher, giving Mipha the opportunity to use what she was best at. Water combat.

Zora's were known to be strong fighters, but in the water, they were as dangerous as it could be. The blight had made its chances of beating her much smaller. She made quick work, constantly stabbing the blight from anywhere and returning to the water.

The malice explosion had made the water murky and not clear like it normally was, but it did not dwindle Mipha's chances of winning this fight one bit. Zora's were able to see perfectly fine in the most polluted of rivers, but it wasn't necessarily the most healthy thing for them to swim in, but they could if needed.

Mipha made an attack pattern of silently jumping out of the water, stabbing the spear at the blight, and returning to the water with no more sound than a single raindrop falling into the reservoir lake.

The blight had no idea where she was below the murky waters, so it would randomly stab its spear into the water where it though she might be, it tended to be nowhere close to where she was, making the battle just a little bit easier for the princess.

The only hard part of the battle was when the blight would move to a new part of the room, and she would have to reteach herself the best spots to come up and go down from to make her attack deal as much damage as she could.

Mipha kept this up for quite sometime when she decided to change it up. She knew that she was dealing damage, but it was not a lot, and when she had studied her weapon, she had realized that the tip was starting to dull and that it was beginning to crack around the handle. After the battle, she knew she would take it to be repaired by Dento so it was in pristine condition.

She decided to stay under the water for a little bit and study the blight more closely, trying to find a weak point at which she could cause maximum damage. She scanned every inch of it when she noticed its eyes, well one eye.

She knew she had seen it somewhere before, but she wasn't sure exactly where, and that is what bugged her the most. She sat down under the water, and scanned through her memories, specifically those that revolved around Sheikah tech, when it dawned on her.

Specifically, it was the memory of when one of the testing Guardians went berserk and started shooting lasers everywhere. Nobody had been seriously injured, but she did have to help heal some of the researchers.

Link had stepped in and used a pot lid to reflect the machine's laser right back at it. The eye that was scanning the water looking for her looked the exact same, and she got an idea.

She watched from under the water a bit more, waiting for the right moment, and she got it. She leaped out of the water as she had done so many times before and threw her weapon right into the blight's eye.

Its cry of pain made Mipha smile, but that smile quickly stopped when she looked to find her spear again, and all she could see were pieces of it under the water, and they were floating out of Ruta through one of the many small holes and down the river.

Mipha was now unarmed, and she did not know what she could do. She could not harm the monster now, but she had to try. She began to panic and decided to jump out of the water to get a close look at the blight, for anyway, she could harm it without a weapon, but that was a fatal mistake.

The malice hand snatched her out of the air, and she wanted to scream, but the blight had a hand wrapped around her throat, and she couldn't make a single sound, not even a small cry. The thing that happened next was agonizing.

While holding onto Mipha's throat, the blight had full control of the beast and found a way to shut the many windows in the terminal room, so there was no way for someone to help her. The princess was now helpless.

Terror was mixed with fear the moment the blight appeared to smile. It retracted it's spear back even further until it looked like nothing more than a knife. And it started shaving off Mipha's scales.

The process of scale removal was very painful for Zora's, so they often were drugged with painkillers or were sleeping so they would not feel it. But Mipha felt every agonizing second go by. Her scales were dropped into the water below one by one, and every time one did, it was followed by a scream of pain.

However, once she was scaleless, the blight was still not done, when he dropped her into the water. She cried out in pain. If a zora had no scales, they were not allowed to be in polluted water, and preferably not in the water at all, but pollution was deadly.

Their scales protected them from the polluted water, but she was completely prone to every moment, every agonizing moment of it until she was no longer able to scream. She could do nothing. She was in the darkness with nothing but a faint light.

There was a silhouette going to the light, a Rito. Unsure of what else to do, she followed it, hoping it would show her the way.

 ***Present ***

When Link got up, he realized that he must have been crying, because when he wiped his face, it was completely soaked. He was so sad that the last thing she had felt was unbearable pain. He wanted it to be love. Love and kindness with him, even though it was a selfish thought, he wanted her to always be with him.

He hugged his Zora tunic even tighter before searching his bottomless pit pockets for something, and he found it.

A diamond looking heart shaped container. The only thing that fit Mipha. He carefully coaxed the scales, bringing along some of the water with it. He would occasionally strain out some of the water in order to make room for more of his scales.

The container was quite large and was able to fit all the scales in with room to spare, and he would add in some water later, but not this water. It had been stained with Mipha's blood and pain. He would get water from the reservoir lake after it was all over to put in the bottle.

He put the cap on it before avenging the death of the one person he cared about above all else.

He positioned the container just right on the table, engraved with the symbol of Ruta. The table fits in with the rest of the room quite nicely, and Bolson even added some Luminous stone accents around the edges of the engraving, after Link had gotten the needed materials for it.

Mipha's lightscale trident sat in the mount made just for it, with her scales underneath it. He kissed the bottle before replacing it on the table and stepped back. The last pieces of two of his friends sat right there in his house, and he wasn't done yet.

He would not stop until the others were avenged, and the Calamity was vanquished from Hyrule. He would make sure of it.

And when he looked at Mipha's bottle for one more time, a small tear formed on his cheek as he whispered one thing.

"I love you"


End file.
